The present disclosure relates to air cleaner arrangements used for example, in vehicles and other equipment. It particularly concerns air cleaners with pulse jet systems, allowing for selected pulse jet cleaning of serviceable filter cartridges therein. This allows for extended service life of filter cartridges and operating life for the vehicle or other equipment before servicing as needed.
A variety of systems for pulse jet air cleaning are known. Examples described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,401,285; 5,575,826; 5,683,479, are pulse jet air cleaning systems for vehicles such as the M1 tank. Others described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,676,721; 6,872,237; and 6,908,494, are pulse jet air cleaners for a media pack usable in heavy duty equipment such as mining equipment or ore haulers. Each of the previously identified six U.S. patents is incorporated herein by reference.
Further examples of pulse jet arrangements are described in PCT/US07/14187, filed Jun. 18, 2007, and incorporated herein by reference, in its entirety. The PCT application PCT/US07/14187, published as WO 2007/149388 on Dec. 27, 2007, was filed with priority claims to each of three previously filed U.S. provisional applications: 60/814,744, filed Jun. 19, 2006; 60/848,320, filed Sep. 29, 2006; and 60/921,173, filed Mar. 30, 2007. Each of these three provisional applications is also incorporated herein by reference.
In general terms, some pulse jet air cleaner arrangements such as those described in PCT/US07/14187 have an evacuation valve assembly or arrangement thereon. The evacuation valve arrangement allows for evacuation of dust, water and air pressure from an interior of the air cleaner assembly, during a pulse jet cleaning operation. The present application relates to improvements in such evacuation valve arrangements and their use.